They are historians, authors, editors, photographers, columnists, journalists, judges, drivers, restorers, artisans, collectors and constructors. They hail from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy. Here are the names of thirty-three whose contributions made the year 2024 one to remember.

Jeff Allison, Gary Axon, Giles Chapman, Bob Cullinan, Rodney Diggens, Joseph Duray, Brandes Elitch, Graham Gauld, Greg Glassner, Bob Harrington, Joe Hurwich, Stefan Ivanov, Vince Johnson, Jackie Jouret, Allen R. Kuhn, Dale LaFollette, James Lanoway, Frederic Levaux, Bernard Linck, Roberto Motta, Herb Miska, Chris Nugent, Willem Oosthoek, Paul Sable, Charley Seavey, Jonathan Sharp, Jim Sitz, Roy Smith, Sean Smith, Pete Vack, Hugues Vanhoolandt, Paul Wilson, Robert Young

What is it? Can you help?

By Dale LaFollette
Photos courtesy Dale LaFollette and Tom Black

My good friend Tom Black is at it again. (See Tom’s previous project, below) He just purchased the car pictured here in the last couple of months.

I think the motivation was he couldn’t figure out what it was or who did it. Here are a few specifics; perhaps our readers can shed some light on Tom’s find.

*The chassis is professionally built with independent suspension on all four corners with torsion bars.
*The nose is all-aluminum with either a Kurtis grill or a very good copy.
*The engine is an early Chrysler hemi, the transmission is from a Packard.

At some stop in its hard life someone tried to make a drag racer out of it. They cut off the back of the frame and put that roll bar on it and then seemingly gave up. That elaborate manifold was supposedly made by Ed Winfield, but there is no concrete evidence about the Winfield or Kurtis connection. It’s pretty obvious that the original intent was that of a road racer, as it has cycle fenders (not mounted yet). It came out of San Francisco and I imagine someone in LA knows all about it. I bet ultimately we will find out it was built in the very early 50s as it would’ve been a competitor then of the dominant Allards and other homebuilts. Several of us have been thrashing with the magazines and books but have turned up absolutely nothing so far. So, can you help?

Tom’s previous project

This one might be easy compared to Tom’s last project. He wanted to create a Chrysler Ghia-like the one in this drawing.

To accomplish this, Tom found a 1958 Chrysler Saratoga and a 1957 300 C.

All you have to do is…

Tom shortened the chassis by 8 inches, dropped the fins down, lowered the top into the body, then made all the original glass and side windows fit. He took the headlights from four down to two, made little bumpers for the front, installed Italian pop out doorhandles.

Tom standing next to the now much lower Chrysler.

About halfway through the process he told me making a whole car is really hard! But the results were worthwhile:

Tom extended the rear bumper forward to help balance the look so it wouldn’t look like it was just hanging off the back of the car.

A very successful finish.

At first, a small group of famous drivers gathered for the cameras; Moss, Fangio, Dreyfus, Hill and Gurney.

Here is Dale LaFollette’s version of Heroes at the Long Beach Grand Prix of 1976. Please also read Larry Crane’s version (click here). Note the two photographers did not know each other at the time and didn’t know one was shooting the same scene from a different angle.–Ed.

Story and photos by Dale LaFollette

My May issue of MotorSport magazine arrived some time ago and as I thumbed through it, memories came flooding back as there was a story about a historic race in 1976 that I was quite familiar with.

In 1976, my closest friend Frank Fitch and I decided we needed to be at the first Long Beach Grand Prix, scheduled for March 28th. Frank was a service engineer for Mazda and a Formula B racer whose financial obligations had halted his racing program. I was three years into a career as manager of Portland International Raceway and I wanted to see how the folks in Long Beach would transform city streets into a racetrack overnight. Frank just wanted to see the race.